How to Replicate StoryBeads?

Setting up SD card: 

If you are using an SD card that already has Raspberry Pi Operating System (OS) installed, you can skip this step and go straight to Step 2. This step is also helpful if you ever need to re-flash your SD card at some point. 

If you are using a brand-new SD card, you will need to install the Raspberry Pi operating system on it:

1. Download the Raspberry Pi Imager from the official Raspberry Pi Software page: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ and choose the version of the imager that matches your computer's OS (e.g. Windows, MacOS). 

2. Insert the SD card into your laptop using an SD card slot or a USB card reader/adapter.

3. Use the Imager to Install Raspberry Pi OS

   • Open the Pi Imager. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) should look similar to the image on the right.

1. • Click on the CHOOSE OS button to select the operating system. The OS recommended by Imager is at the top of the list. 

   • Click on the CHOOSE STORAGE button and select your SD card

   • Click the WRITE button to begin the installation

4.  (Optional but recommended) Under OS Customization, configure the wifi network if known and enable ssh for remote access. 

5. Once the verification is completed, the SD card can be removed 

To learn more information about these steps, go to the official site: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html#setting-up-your-raspberry-pi 

Install Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

1. On your laptop, go to the official VS Code website: https://code.visualstudio.com/download 

2. Download and install VS Code for your operating system.

Install the Remote - SSH Extension

3. Open VS Code

4. Click on the Extensions icon in the left-hand toolbar

5. In the search bar, type "remote ssh" 

6. Click install on the extension "Remote - SSH" (the one published by Microsoft) as shown in the image below 

Prepare Pi

7. Connect your Raspberry Pi to a monitor using an HDMI cable.

8. Plug in a keyboard and mouse 

9. Open the terminal on the Pi.

10. To find the IP address (a unique identifier on your network), run:

hostname -I 

11. To check the pi name, run the command:

whoami

the default username is usually "pi"

12. Connect both your Raspberry Pi and laptop to the same Wi-Fi network

Use the Remote SSH Extension 

13. Open VS Code on your laptop,

14. Click at the bottom-left corner of the IDE as shown on the image below

15. Click on "Connect to Host" 

16. Type: ssh piusername@ipaddress -A 

Replace piusername with your Pi's username (e.g. pi) and ip address with the IP you noted earlier (e.g. 192.168.0.103).

17. Press Enter. If it is your first time connecting, you will be asked to confirm the host fingerprint. Click yes.

18. Enter the Pi’s password when prompted.

19. Now you should be able to see Now you should be able to see the contents of the Raspberry Pi’s filesystem directly within VS Code.

• Assuming you are remotely connected to your pi, open your terminal

• Install Git on your Pi by running the command: 

sudo apt-get install git

Git is a version control system that lets you download and manage code from GitHub.

• Go to https://github.com/Memory-Museum/StoryBeads/tree/main/BeadCase 

• Download the 2 .ipt files. Each file is a side of the case. 

• Save these files into a USB drive 

• 3D print three beads, each a different color

• Insert the tags into the cases

• Clone the GitHub repo: 

gh repo clone Memory-Museum/StoryBeads 

❓not familiar with Github? check out the additional resources section below. 

• Navigate to the project folder 

• RFID tags have a unique identifier. Run the tags.py file to detect the unique IDs on your tags.  

• Edit the X lines with the specific IDs for each of the RFIDs. 

• Run the script 

• The 3D printed beads have a hole through both sides, so you can use an elastic string to add beads.

• Each bead string represents a different story

• Add the

Original Paper: 

Lizette Reitsma, Andrew Smith, and Elise van den Hoven. 2013. StoryBeads: Preserving Indigenous Knowledge through Tangible Interaction Design. In Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Culture and Computing (CULTURECOMPUTING '13). IEEE Computer Society, USA, 79–85. https://doi.org/10.1109/CultureComputing.2013.22